


The Orange Cellar

by scullyphile



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, F/M, MSR, Portals, basement office
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 15:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4752104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyphile/pseuds/scullyphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man passes through a strange portal and comes looking for Agent Mulder with a warning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Orange Cellar

Mulder awoke, eyes still sticky from sleep. Everything was perfect. He took moment to revel this feeling, because he could hardly believe it was real. He was naked in Scully's bed. How had it taken him so long to get here? His loneliness seemed so far away now that it didn't matter how long it had been. Climbing out of bed and standing up, Mulder felt a sweet ache in the muscles of his arms and legs. He flexed his arms in the mirror before he dressed in yesterday's suit and put on his trench coat. His partner was in the shower, so he left her a short note:

"Going home to change.  
Will meet you at the office.  
Less suspicious that way.  
You never know who might be watching...  
Yours,"

He stopped writing. Hardly a romantic note, but it served its purpose; and it was kind of funny, right? Should he sign it Mulder? Or maybe he should put his initials. F.M.? M.? In the end, he left it unsigned. It didn't need a signature. The real message was that he was hers.

\---

A skinny, dark-haired figure stood in an alley near Mulder's apartment building, waiting for Mulder to arrive. He was tired--so very tired--his head was pounding, and he could not remember the last time he had eaten. It felt like his stomach had started eating itself. He hoped Mulder would arrive soon. He had considered waiting for him in the apartment, but he didn't want to get himself shot. It was not a good idea to be a shadowy figure waiting in an FBI agent's apartment.

  
The man stared down at his fingers, studied how dirty and calloused they were in an attempt to distract himself from how cold he was. Was this February? January? He could swear that when he left the house this morning it was October. His coat felt threadbare. He had no one to take care of him, and no desire to take care of himself. It was a wonder he had thought to put the coat on at all.

The dirt was from digging a hole. He'd received a phone call from a young woman who had found a portal. He had been pretty drunk when he listened to the message on his machine the night before. Of course he'd missed the call in the first place. He had no reason to answer his calls anymore. The little red light had been blinking, and for a moment he'd forgotten it all, forgotten that there was no one left to call him--at least, no one he had any urge to talk to. That moment of forgetting had changed everything.

The message spoke of a shack, gave coordinates that were nearby. In this shack, the young woman said, she had found a portal. She said she was leaving the message just in case, for some reason, she was not able to return. He recognized her voice from years before, her story was familiar. His mind started working on the possibilities this opened up for him.

The idea of the shack stuck in his mind, and in the morning, despite his hangover, the man had decided to go to the coordinates. The shack was empty inside. There was one door, and there were two windows on the walls adjacent to the door. It had a dirt floor, and the ground was disturbed in the center. Seeing that this was the most obvious and only clue, he walked to the area where the dirt had been disturbed and dug. As he had suspected, several inches down in the soil there was a trap door to a cellar. He lifted the hatch. A strange orange light came from inside. He looked around some, but didn't see a ladder or stairs of any kind. The drop wasn't far, however, only about six feet. With nothing to lose, the decision was simple. The man dropped down.

The cellar was small and L-shaped. He had to crouch down some due to the low ceiling. As he rounded the corner, the man saw what must be the portal. Roughly the size and shape of a door, it was clearly the source of the orange glow. When he touched the with his fingers, it felt a little like Jello. There was a surface tension to it, but he knew he could push through easily.

The man was pulled back from these recent memories by the sound of a car door. He watched as Mulder walked to the apartment building. He was alone. Good. The man waited several more moments before following.

\--  
Mulder shrugged off his coat and threw it on the couch before hurrying to the bathroom. The cold had awakened his bladder. He had moved on to brushing his teeth when there was a knock at the door. In fact, when he answered, his toothbrush was still hanging out of his mouth. When he saw the dirty, huddled figure, he pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth, which hung open.

"Surprised to see me?" A raspy voice inquired. With his free hand, Agent Mulder reached for his gun, but it wasn't there. He was staring into his own face, the face he might have if he was a vagrant with an unkempt beard and a strong smell of B.O. "Listen, I know what you're thinking. I'm not an alien bounty hunter. I have to tell you--I came to warn you--about Scully. She's a spy. She's been a spy the entire time."

What the hell was happening? Rage began to build inside the clean-cut Agent Mulder.

"What the fuck did you just say?" he spat out each word. Mulder moved to grab the man, but for someone who was such a mess, the scruffy fellow could move fast.

"Listen. She doesn't know. She's a sleeper. She's going to betray you, and she doesn't even realize. The worst part," he continues, his voice faltering, "the worst part is that once the trigger on the sleeper is pulled, your Scully will be gone forever. Only the part of her that has been sleeping will be there. She will betray you, disappear forever, and you will become this--" the man's hands pull uselessly at his jacket for emphasis as he talks "--this shell of a person, unable to live and unwilling to die."


	2. The Red Cellar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Scully meet the woman who discovered the portals in the cellar.

 "The portal does not always lead to the same place. Hell, it doesn't always lead to the same time." The young woman was trying desperately to explain herself in a way that made sense. She sat across from Agent Mulder, and he looked much older than the last time she'd seen him. She was surprised to find him still working in the same office, with the same partner. He had explained that they had only recently returned to the FBI, to the X-Files, after years away.

"Slow down for just a minute. How did you find this shack? Why did you come looking for me?" Mulder interrupted.

"I looked up people who study the paranormal, and your name kept coming up, Agent Mulder. I didn't know where to turn. No one would believe me. I was walking in the woods one day, came upon this beaten-down old shack. I like that kind of thing, abandoned buildings, sneaking into places, mysteries. I went in and the ground was disturbed. I found a trap door that led to a cellar. There was some kind of light inside.

"The first time I went in, it was a yellow light. The cellar was kind of an L-shape or something, and when I went around the corner I saw the light was coming from the far wall. There was something that looked like a doorway, if doorways had opaque gelatin where a door should be. I couldn't see the other side, but there was definitely a yellow light coming from the other side. I pushed through, and I was back in the shack, the ground floor of the shack, not the cellar. That's weird, right? The trap door was covered with dirt again, and it looked just like it had when I had entered, but there was no light. I think the portal itself was yellow."

Newly re-instated Agent Mulder shifted in his seat. He looked at Scully, who was sitting at her new desk. She was always sitting over there now, enamored with her new desk. It was cute. Scully raised her eyebrows at him in disbelief, just like old times. His heart warmed at the sight of her; she looked happy again. It had been so long since he had glanced at her and seen a happiness that bright like an aura around her. 

"So, that's what brought you here, then? This yellow portal?" Scully asked skeptically, but still with kindness and encouragement in her tone. She wanted the girl to keep talking. It seemed this might be their first case back on the X-Files, and it had just walked into their office while they were unpacking their things.

"Well, no, this place is red," Amy responded.

"The color is relevant then," Mulder broke in. "Different colors for different... what? Times? Places? Universes? Or do you know?"

"I am getting an idea, I think. I think the same colors are always the same places or times. When I went through the yellow doorway... in yellow everyone was younger. It seemed to be the past." Amy fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, which was covered in tiny flowers. She was about 25, with long blonde hair, which she wore in a high ponytail. Amy seemed like she might start to cry, so Scully got up and came over to the chair she was sitting in, which was across from Mulder's desk.

"Let me ask you a weird question," Amy spoke as Scully stood next to her. "What year are we in now?"

"2016," Mulder replied and watched as Amy's face lost some of its color.

"That far in the future?" she whispered to herself. Then, to the agents, "I've never been this far into the future before."

Mulder and Scully quickly turned to each other and made eye contact. 

"What year are you from?" Mulder asked. Before she could answer, Scully spoke. When Mulder looked at Amy he saw that she was trembling and had a far-off look in her eyes.

"Mulder, maybe Amy would like some water," Scully said, and turned to face Amy, "or some coffee?" At the word coffee, Scully’s hand came to rest on Amy's shoulder.

"Maybe some water." Amy said. She felt very thirsty.

\--

After drinking the water, Amy seemed to get her mind back on track.

  
"Can I borrow some paper and a pen?" she asked. "I do know some things. I have been through several different colored portals, and I think there are only two or maybe three different worlds through the portal, but each of those worlds has portals leading to several different times," she explained, as Mulder handed her a clipboard with some paper and a pen. "Thank you," she said, and started writing.

"You've talked to us before, then?"

"Some versions of you, I think."

"Then why don't we remember you?" Scully asked.

"I talked to what I believe to be alternate versions of you. It was the versions of you in the blue portal. That's an earlier time in what I call World 1. I know, it's not a very clever name, but what can I say? I am from World 1. I am from a time when the portal is green. I contacted you then, Agent Mulder. Well, I tried, but you didn't answer my calls. Finally, against my better judgement, I left the information on your machine."

"You left the information on how to get to another world on my answering machine?" Mulder asked, eyebrows raised. 

"Well, sure, it was stupid of me. It sounds really stupid when you say it, actually. But I was desperate."

"Sorry to interrupt," Mulder apologized. "Go on, please."

"It goes like this, from what I can tell," Amy explained, writing on the yellow legal pad:

World 1: Blue -> Green -> Purple  
World 2: Yellow -> Orange -> Red  
World 3?: White?

"I'm not at all sure about World 3 or of what I saw in the white portal. It, well, let's just say that it did not seem like either of our worlds. Anyway, in World 1 the earliest time I have been to is 1993 in the blue portal. I talked to both of you then. In the green portal, I tried to talk to you, as I said, Agent Mulder, but you didn't answer. From what I could tell, you are no longer with the FBI in my world and time. I tried to call Agent Scully, but I only got her secretary."

"My secretary?"

"Yes. When I explained that I had talked to you in the past about an X-File, she said, 'Assistant Director Scully is extremely busy, but if you give me your name, I will tell her you called.'"

Mulder turned to his partner.

"Assistant Director Scully?"


	3. The Collapsed Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stranger speaks.

He stood in the apartment--his but not his--and fidgeted for a moment before looking the happier version of himself in the eye for the first time and speaking.

 

“I gave up on everything when Scully left. I knew it was exactly what they wanted, but knowing that made no difference. I still could not get out of bed. It would have been better for the cause of truth if they had killed her or taken her again. In that case, they knew, I would never stop searching, never stop exposing their lies. They needed a solution that left me numb and broken, unable to rise from the floor of my apartment. They found that.

 

She left of her own accord. She’s still out there living, and I’ve given up. 

 

I wish they would have just killed me or locked me away somewhere. This is no worse. Of course, if I were taken, the old Scully would never have given up the search for me, just as I wouldn’t have for her. That was no solution for them either. And if it was the old Scully, the true Scully, the Scully who loved me, I would never wish that on her. I would never wish myself dead, because it would make her suffer.

 

I wonder sometimes if that's what keeps me from killing myself, the thought that she’s in there somewhere, the woman that once loved me. But that cannot be the case. If I really believed that I would be fighting to get her back somehow, and I haven’t been. I hate myself for that, for not fighting, for not believing she still exists. Ironically, the reason I believe the Scully I loved is gone is because the only one I trust told me so.

 

These are the most words I have spoken to anyone in months. There has been nothing to say and no one to say it to. The only one I told my thoughts and feelings to blocked my calls, put a restraining order on me, shut me out in every way possible. She didn’t want me fighting for her anymore, and what else is there?

 

The last time I saw her, she called me poison. I stood in her hallway and begged her not to leave the x-files, not to leave me.

 

‘It’s too late, Mulder,’ she said. ‘It’s done. I told them everything they wanted to know. They’re going to transfer me to a unit with actual potential for advancement. I don’t even care which one it is. I just have to get away from this darkness. I have to get away from you. Everyone was right about you. You’re poison.’

 

What could I say to that? Those were not words that would ever come out of the mouth of the woman I had known for three years. My heart collapsed in on itself, and then I saw her eyes. They were cold and vacant. There was almost nothing there that I recognized.  


 

‘What the hell is wrong with you, Scully,’ I screamed. ‘Are you even her? Is she dead? Let me see your neck. Right now.’

 

My words didn’t seem to affect her at all. She simply turned around, lifted her hair, and sighed.

 

‘Satisfied?’ she snapped. ‘I am not an alien. I’m just an agent like you. The only difference is that I am loyal to my country and its goals. The American public cannot handle the truth. They are not entitled to the truth. As it stands at this point in time, the truth doesn’t even matter to them. Their lives would not be any different if they knew it.’

 

‘No, you're not her. Who are you? What have you done with Scully?!’ I raged. I came at her, pinned her against the wall. She showed no emotion.

 

‘The person you knew is gone. This is her body, but she is no more. She was strong, but I am stronger. I have cast her out. There is no way to get her back, no enemy to fight, no truth to expose. I will tell it all to you, if you want to know it. But it will give you no peace.’

 

‘I've never been looking for peace,’ I told her, ‘only answers.’

 

‘The one who could have brought her back is dead, and even if she were alive, the window for retrieving Scully's personality has long closed. She is not even a ghost, not even the ghost of a ghost. There existed a woman with telepathic powers. She planted the seed of me in the mind of your Scully. I grew inside her mind. The light of her knowledge fed me. I learned all that she learned. I know all that she knows, but I have none of her compassion, none of her loyalty, none of those traits that made her weak, that made her love you.’

 

‘So she did love me then?’ I asked, my muscles still frozen holding this impostor against the wall.

 

‘She did. I do not. I will not. There is nothing for you here, and if you harass me again, I will have you locked away for the rest of your natural life.’

 

‘What difference could that make to me now?’ I wondered aloud. But I released her. I let her go, and I walked away. I didn’t know what else to do. 

 

I have always known _something_ to do, had some course of action available to me. It was all gone."  


 

Mulder stared at him, silent.

 

"From the look of it, that didn't happen to you. Not yet, anyway. Maybe it never will, but we can't take that chance."

 

"No, we can't," he said, finally. "What do we do?"

 

“I don’t know.” 

 

“Then I’m going to do what I always do. I’m going to ask Scully.”


End file.
